EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN - Vol. 30

Everything Old Is New Again
Vol. 30 - August 2021

By Hunter Bush

Oh hello, I didn't see you come in. Have a seat, soak up some of the air conditioning. I'll get you an ice cold lemonade. Welcome to the August installment of Everything Old Is New Again, my monthly column covering upcoming movies and series that are inspired by some older property. Maybe it's a book or a toy line, maybe an older movie that the bigwigs at whichever studio think deserves another chance at snatching your attention. Whatever it may be, if it's EOINA material and I can find a trailer for it, I'll cover it below.

The way this works is, I watch whatever trailers and footage I can find, make some educated guesses about the flick and lay out how I'm feeling about the project. Maybe I'm excited, maybe I'm not, maybe it's just not for me. However it all shakes out for me personally, maybe you'll find out about something you weren't aware of.

And as always, at the bottom of the column, I've included a Spotlight section to bring your attention few not necessarily new EOINA flicks that I think are worth seeking out. Ready? Let's go.

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PREMIERS
The brand new movies coming to screens great and small in August.

6th

The Suicide Squad (dir. James Gunn)
Where: Theaters

In the 2016 Suicide Squad directed by certified macho dudebro David Ayer, a bunch of the DC comics universe's villains are recruited to go on a suicide mission because, being bad guys, they're expendable. It's a concept DC has had lying around since the late 1980s, when writer John Ostrander revamped an earlier idea and made it fit in with the type of stylized action movie violence and antiheroes that were putting the pop in pop culture at that time. Having fun with DCs decades-deep bench of forgettable and therefore explodable villains, Ostrander occasionally fluffed out the team's roster with a character he knew he was gonna kill because it would be a fun surprise for readers when it happened. My guess is James Gunn is doing the same with his The Suicide Squad because the sheer number of characters is unwieldy for any extended length of time. The plot here seems to be building to the reveal of Starro, DC comics' alien starfish which can turn people into mindless drones, but hey what do I know? Maybe that's all a misdirect? All I know is that the cast is supremely stacked with Margot Robbie & Viola Davis returning, among others and the likes of Idris Elba, John Cena, Peter Capaldi and Nathan Fillion as well as Sylvester Stallone voicing the anthropomorphic King Shark, I just think this looks like big dumb fun. I hope I get to watch some of these knuckleheads get blown up.

27th

Candyman (dir. Nia DaCosta)
Where: Theaters

Candyman... Candyman... Candyman... Do you guys think that saying his name five times is a lot? Isn't Bloody Mary only asking for three, or was she also five? Anyway, Nia DaCosta's "spiritual sequel" to the franchise inspired by Clive Barker's short story The Forbidden is a big deal. It generated much hype oh so long ago when the first teaser trailer dropped, but I was still cautious. Then the film's release was delayed for, like, ever. But now finally, it's almost time! That first teaser was all stylized cut-paper shadow puppet imagery and, while extremely cool looking, didn't give me much of an idea about the film. The latest trailer footage however does and much to my joy and excitement, it looks just as interesting and stylish as the choice to use those shadow puppets was! This time, it seems to be leaning on the idea of Candyman being more of a force than one single entity - "Candyman's not a he, it's the whole damn hive" - and we hear an origin that's different from the 1992 version but maybe, in the universe of the movie, that's just a recent example of the evil in the land. The cast here rules - Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris and Vanessa Williams for starters, plus Tony Todd - and I loved the music in the trailer, by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe who has worked on other film scores I enjoyed like Arrival, Sicario and mother! All in all this looks fantastic and I'm super excited to finally see it!

SPOTLIGHT
Here are a few EOINA friendly movies that you might want to make time for.

1st

Thirteen Ghosts (2001) (dir. Steve Beck)
Where: HBO Max

A remake of William Castle's truly excellent 13 Ghosts, Beck's Thirteen Ghosts (a.k.a. Thir13en Ghosts) absolutely rules. Honestly, though I haven't seen it in a while it has probably only gotten better with age, now functioning as a time capsule for that specific era of horror. Not to go full Stefon on you but Thirteen Ghosts has everything: Tony Shalhoub as grieving and cash-strapped widower Arthur Kriticos, Matthew Lillard as a typically wet-mouthed paranormal investigator, bizarre architecture, an early-aughts spin on 3-D eyewear and a metric ton of worldbuilding! If I have one critique it's that we don't get enough of the ghosts. Okay, actually my other criticism is that it should have been subtitled Situation Kriticos.

Mirror Mirror (2012) (dir. Tarsem Singh)
Where: Hulu

I'm a Tarsem stan, so I saw this one in theaters and was surprised by how much I enjoyed myself. I underestimated Tarsem Singh's taste and wrongly presumed that this would just end up as another in that spate of fairy tale updates that were rolling out around that time. I figured this one would just look better due to Singh's fantastic visual style and while it does, it also throws out a half dozen creative twists on the familiar Snow White fable and, thanks to Singh's long time partnership with costume designer genius Eiko Ishioka, some absolutely incredible looks.

The African Queen (1951) (dir. John Huston)
Where: Criterion Channel

The Criterion Channel are adding a dozen or more John Huston movies under the umbrella of John Huston: Hollywood Maverick, including his adaptation of the 1935 novel from C.S. Forester. I watched this quite a few times as a youngin and was always captivated by Katherine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart's performances. They're both just charming, and effortlessly magnetic. There's enough of an adventure angle to keep even kiddie-me interested but in my memory they were always the true draw for me. I'm excited to watch this again and I hope you will to.

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Sadly, that's it for this month. I kept delaying this column in the hopes that some new info would come out and put some more movies on the radar for August. There's supposedly a gender-swapped remake of 1999's underrated She's All That (called He's All That, natch) but I could not for the life of me find a real trailer. Ah well. There are some fun things coming up in September.

Our there in the real world, and I hate to be a bummer but also ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, so I want to remind you all to stay cautious if you're going to theaters. Covid cases are once again on the rise despite the heat and the fact that it does worse in warm conditions is worrisome in what it infers about the coming autumn and winter. Take care of yourselves, and lets take care of each other.

If you're not sick of me, you can hear me cohosting the Hate Watch/Great Watch podcast with Allison Yakulis, recently talking about 2019's Shazam! I'll also be covering the Fantasia Film Fest this year, again with Allison, so keep your eyes peeled for those articles over on MovieJawn! Thanks as always for reading and Long Live the Movies!